Yesterday, speaking with New Orleans radio talk show host Garland Robinette, Mark Krikorian, head of the anti-immigrant think tank Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and the intellectual author of the “self-deportation” strategy, offered a fresh reminder why Latino voters have rejected candidates and parties who listen to him. According to a transcript and recording of [...]

In response to inquiries regarding how the continued events in Boston may affect immigration reform, Frank Sharry, the Executive Director of America’s Voice Education Fund, issued the following statement: Our hearts go out to the people of Boston.  They have been attacked, they are under lockdown and our thoughts and prayers are with them. The [...]

Appearing on Sean Hannity’s radio show earlier this week, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated: I think the reason that President Obama is insisting on a path to citizenship is that it is designed to be a poison pill to scuttle the whole bill, so he can have a political issue in 2014 and 2016.  I [...]

Goodlatte & House GOP’s Effort to Deny Citizenship for Undocumented = Un-American, Unpopular, & Tone-Deaf to Political Imperative Yesterday was a good day for immigration reform prospects, as the AFL/CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a set of shared principles that generated praise and optimism from observers ranging from White House press secretary Jay Carney to House [...]

Curtain Rises on Immigration in 113th Congress as House Judiciary Committee Holds Tuesday Hearing In recent years, the anti-immigrant wing of the Republican Party has driven the GOP’s immigration rhetoric and policies in a hard-line, inhumane, illogical, and tone-deaf direction.  After Mitt Romney “self-deported himself from the White House – in the words of Republican [...]

Tomorrow, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) travels to Sioux City, Iowa to speak at a fundraiser for Rep. Steve King (R). This is Governor Christie’s first mistake of the 2016 campaign. Instead of taking a page from Jeb Bush’s upcoming book, he’s following the Romney strategy: double down on extremism early on, and box yourself in for the general election.

The relationship status between Mitt Romney and Kris Kobach remains complicated. Romney claimed yesterday that he has “not met” with Kobach, the infamous architect of the “show me your papers” immigration approach that forms the heart of the Arizona and Alabama state laws, as well as Romney’s articulated “self-deportation” vision for immigration policy. Despite Romney’s [...]

The lawyer behind the odious Arizona and Alabama “show me your papers” laws, Kris Kobach, the man driving the immigration agenda of Mitt Romney’s Republican Party, has somehow gone even further off the rails and is now embracing discredited “birther” conspiracy theories. As Talking Points Memo highlights, “Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an informal [...]

Washington, DC – At the Republican National Convention, leaders in the party have taken a curious approach to Latino outreach: avoiding the issue of immigration; refusing to disavow hard-line immigration positions; lecturing Latino voters; blaming Democrats for the GOP’s self-inflicted problems with Latinos; and making embarrassingly transparent overtures to appeal to Latinos based on quirks [...]

Washington, DC – As expected, the 2012 RNC platform contains extreme hardline positions on immigration.  The document is filled with references to “illegal aliens” and takes a particularly strong stand against the DREAMer deferred action program, declaring that President Obama’s immigration approach has “undermined the rule of law at every turn,” by creating “a backdoor amnesty [...]

Observers Agree: “Demographics is Destiny” for GOP Unless Party Re-Images Itself on Immigration Washington, DC – As evidenced by its party platform, the reins of the Republican Party’s immigration policy are in the hands of hardliners, led by anti-immigrant legal architect Kris Kobach.  Ahead of this week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, some prominent Republican politicians, [...]